This invention relates to a two-dimensional surface emitting laser array, a two-dimensional surface emitting laser beam scanner, a two-dimensional surface emitting laser beam recorder, and a two-dimensional surface emitting laser beam recording method and in particular to a two-dimensional surface emitting laser array, a two-dimensional surface emitting laser beam scanner, a two-dimensional surface emitting laser beam recorder, and a two-dimensional surface emitting laser beam recording method capable of forming laser spots brought into intimate contact with each other on an image formation plane, mainly, on a photosensitive body with high accuracy.
A conventional two-dimensional surface emitting laser array is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,325,386, for example. This two-dimensional surface emitting laser array comprises a predetermined two-dimensional pattern of lasers on a semiconductor substrate and a microlens is formed on each laser as required.
With the two-dimensional surface emitting laser array, the lasers are driven in response to an image signal and laser light emitted from the lasers is scanned in a main scanning direction or main and sub scanning directions by a scan mirror, thereby generating a two-dimensional visible image pattern.
On the other hand, a conventional semiconductor laser beam scanner is described in the Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Hei 1-152683, for example. This semiconductor laser beam scanner has a semiconductor laser array comprising lasers arranged on one dimension and a lens system for gathering laser light emitted from the semiconductor laser array to a light exposure position, and an image formation plane of bar code, etc., is placed at the light exposure position.
A conventional laser beam printer is described in the Unexamined Japanese Patent application Publication No. Sho 64- 42667, for example. This laser beam printer consists of a semiconductor laser array comprising semiconductor substrates stuck on each other and lasers arranged over the width in the main scanning direction of a recording substance and a photosensitive body placed in the proximity of the semiconductor laser array and exposed directly to laser light of the lasers.
However, according to the two-dimensional surface emitting laser array described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,325,386, laser light is scanned by the scan mirror, thus a failure is prone to occur in the scan mirror system and noise occurs. On the other hand, if a photosensitive body is exposed directly to the laser light, high-quality image recording with no space between pixels cannot be performed because the lasers are spaced from each other.
According to the semiconductor laser beam scanner shown in the Unexamined Japanese Patent application Publication No.
Hei 1-152683, the lasers of the semiconductor laser array are spaced from each other on the semiconductor substrate, thus a space occurs between pixels of an image formed on a photosensitive body and improvement in the image quality is limited.
Further, the laser beam printer shown in the Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Sho 64-42667 has the semiconductor laser array comprising semiconductor substrates stuck on each other, thus pixel array position accuracy lowers in addition to the pixel-to-pixel space problem described above.